Grave Digger

This poem is about day and night. A sort of whimsical fable about a man who rises the sun and puts it to rest.

A man shovels the day one shovel a time away ‘till buried and gone
And night they do not part for they are here two and two of heart
The stars alight and cast like angle dust to ward this place a crowded face
Until the moon that roams like an old man two steps from the tomb
Looks down at this man and grumbles, “Don’t you see, wee small ‘ittle man
Life is big ya understand, a big magical place full of big unimaginable tastes,
eh ‘ittle man?
it’s best you fall asleep so to meet the sun rinsed in morning innocence.”
Yet that he cannot do, not so long as the day is buried and gone away, he knew

Dig, dig, dig the digger digs as fast as he can shovel this sand, he digs
Until he sees light fracture the night, blinding him in radiance
Shovel after shovel uncovers the light and as warm as she is in his arms, there too, is fright
For he cannot keep her, she will burn him to ash and cinder, and send asunder
Reaching back, tears smoldered to steam and salt blackened, he throws her radiance gleaming piercing him like a sword,
He throws her so far, so high, as far as he can Oh Lord!

And Day is kept this way awake and we Earthly creatures thrust our arms into sky
And happily stare lovingly, fingers seething in her hair.
A toast to life and light and a toast, also, to the sleeping night
Where death opens eyes and sees us through opened skies
shows us those come before and reminds us that death is an open door
and that we must remember what the living of life is for

And thrown as she was [the sun], so far, so high, fall too she must to thundering dust
down to where the timeless war is waged by a ‘ittle man
who has suffered to be the giver of all days forward,
And the godly sun, he buries her away each night
And darkness is kept once more until the moon looks down and kindly implores,
“Oh grave digger, dig the sun away and give me some rest, I’m tired and truly you are a friend and will give me my sleep.” So the grave digger puts ‘em to bed and sleeps he does all the more longingly its said
like father to son, and lover to lover,
he pulls up the sun and casts her forward
so far, so high, as far as he can Oh Lord!
so the day can swoon until the coming of the moon